Alright, college students, now you’ve gone too far! Oaksterdam University, located in Oakland California, has only one curriculum: cannabis. Yes, that kind of cannabis. No, this is not a joke.

Taken from their website: “Whether you are a student looking to change careers, someone who wants to brush up on horticulture skills, a business owner who wants to train their current staff, or someone who wants to open their own business, Oaksterdam University welcomes you.” The institution is right across the street from a medical marijuana dispensary. (They actually serve food there. Did you know that? You can actually place an order for brownies right there in the store!) Part of their curriculum is the legal issues surrounding medical marijuana dispersion. Half of their staff is lawyers.

I found these guys at work today. For those who don’t know, I work for an advertising agency that caters exclusively to higher education institutions. I sent the school to one of my friends in Partnership Development and told him to get Sales to bring them on as a client. The link spread pretty quickly through the Sales department, and apparently, someone actually contacted the school. We’ll see what comes of that.

I just posted a Facebook note about this, but I wanted to go into a little more detail here.

For those who don’t know, I adopted the cause of the abolition of human trafficking a few years back. Basically, it’s the buying and selling of humans on the black market. Love146 is an organization dedicated to helping to stop this, so we organized a benefit concert for them last year and we’re approaching our second one (coming January 17).

Here are some quick facts from the Love146 website:

• 1 child is sold into slavery every 30 seconds
• Approximately 1.2 million children are sold annually
• $32 billion is brought in annually from human trafficking
• $28 billion is brought in annually from commercial sexual exploitation
• Humans are the second biggest trade on the black market, beating out weapons and trailing behind only drugs

The concert’s website is here. (Notice the striking similarity to this site. You’ll never guess who designed it.) If you live in the KC area and you feel compelled to help with this cause, please help promote this concert. If you have a blog, blog about it; if you go to church, tell them about it; talk to people at work or in bars.

The goal isn’t just to have a successful concert, but to start a movement in the Kansas City area. Already, we have a strong student group forming. (It’s a national group based out of the KC area.) Last year, we had some people talk to local publications about refusing to advertise unlicensed massage parlors (a common front for slave prostitution). Just a few years back, they shut down one of these massage parlors in Overland Park that was filled with trafficked humans.The movement is starting. We need members.

If you’re not in the KC area, check out Love146, which focuses on abduction prevention and aftercare, and International Justice Mission, which works on a macro level with governments and law enforcement agencies to make trafficking harder for traffickers. There’s lots you can do.

The point is that people have to know about this. It can’t be kept America’s dirty little secret any more. Trafficked women are pimped out in the Adult Services section of Craigslist every day in hundreds of cities across the nation, and hundreds of these “massage parlors” are in operation and are advertised in our daily newspapers, all because people don’t know not to stand for it. Most of the clothes we buy, even some clothes that advertise “Made in the U.S.A.,” are made by trafficked children in sweat shops.

I do not want any of you to come away after reading this and feel guilty about not helping. I also don’t want anyone to feel guilty if they choose another cause over this one. This is my cause, but I realize that there are other ones as well. The point is to do what you do well to do good.

Feel free to contact me with any questions you have on this. I’m pretty passionate about it, and I have some additional resources on-hand if you want any.

When life gives you llamas, make llamanade.

My website got taken down for a short while because I had some trouble paying my bills. Specifically, the credit card being charged for hosting expired a while back and I forgot to update it in the online payment center. Anyway, we should be good now.